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The David Alliance 

Garth Heckman

The Busy Man's Substitute

There is something about a man that would rather build something than bow to something.

Give a man a mission and he'll work himself to exhaustion. Ask that same man to sit quietly in prayer for thirty minutes and he'll suddenly remember seventeen things that need to get done first.

We are, by nature, doers. And somewhere along the way, we convinced ourselves that doing things for God was the same as being with God.

It is not.

The Scripture

"But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, 'Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!' 'Martha, Martha,' the Lord answered, 'you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed — or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her.'" — Luke 10:40–42

Now before you say "that's a story about women" — slow down.

Martha is every man who has ever stayed busy for God while quietly avoiding intimacy with God. She wasn't sinning. She was serving. She was working hard, doing good things, keeping everything moving.

And Jesus gently called it a distraction.

The Honest Truth About Why We'd Rather Work

1. Work gives us something to show for ourselves. Prayer produces nothing we can photograph, present, or point to. You can't put thirty minutes of quiet conversation with God on a report. But a new ministry program? A mission trip organized? A church built? That's something. That feels like proof we matter.

The hard truth is that a lot of what we call "work for God" is really work for our own sense of worth. We need to feel productive. We need to feel useful. Sitting in silence with God doesn't feed that hunger — it exposes it.

2. Work keeps us in control. When you're managing a project, you hold the pen. You make the calls. You set the timeline.

Prayer requires the opposite posture. It requires you to come to Someone greater than yourself, admit you don't have all the answers, and wait. For a man wired to lead and fix and solve — that is genuinely uncomfortable. We don't like waiting. We don't like not knowing. And prayer, at its core, is an act of surrender.

3. Work keeps us from the conversation we're afraid to have. Here's the one most men won't say out loud: sometimes we stay busy because being still means being honest. And being honest with God means the real stuff surfaces — the fear, the failure, the sin we've been managing around, the doubt we've never admitted to anyone.

A project never asks you how you're really doing. God always does.

The Deeper Problem

When a man substitutes work for prayer, he doesn't just miss out on rest — he starts running on his own fuel. And a man running on his own fuel will eventually hit empty at exactly the wrong moment.

Every great project built without a foundation of prayer is just a man's plan with God's name on it.

Moses didn't lead two million people through the desert on strategy. David didn't defeat Goliath on confidence. Nehemiah didn't rebuild the wall on project management skills. Each of them had one thing in common before the great work began — they had been alone with God long enough to know it was His work and not theirs.

The work they did for God flowed out of the time they spent with God. That order matters more than most men realize.

The Gut Check

Ask yourself honestly:

The Invitation

Jesus didn't say Martha's work was wrong. He said Mary's choice was better.

The better thing is not always the bigger thing. Sometimes the most powerful thing a man can do for God's kingdom is close the laptop, silence the phone, sit down in a quiet room and say —

"I'm here. Not to report. Not to plan. Not to ask for anything. Just — here."

That kind of prayer doesn't feel productive. It doesn't look like much from the outside.

But it is the one thing that turns ordinary men into dangerous ones.

Because a man who knows how to be with God is a man God can trust with the work.

Closing Prayer

Lord, forgive me for the times I mistook my busyness for faithfulness. Teach me that You want my presence before You want my productivity. Still the part of me that needs to perform — and grow the part of me that simply needs You. Amen.

"Be still and know that I am God." — Psalm 46:10